hCGChica’s hCG Diet Journal – Round 4

Read/Watch my own hCG Diet Journey As It Unfolded:

R4 Plans for HCG- Loading and VLCD

March 1, 2012

Before I say anything else, please you have to watch my little 2 year old son at 3:40 in the video eating artichoke while I’m vlogging. I’m looking back at this now as he’s now 8 and a half years old and I just can’t believe how adorable he was and still is. Of course I’m his mother, but he really is a cutie and I want to show him off. Okay back to hCG.

Round 4 plans:

-Low carb / Clean loading again. For me I’ve learned that there can never be a good excuse to overeat on carbs and sugar. I can’t let my mind allow that ever again. It takes me to very dark places I don’t want to be.

-Short Round (3 weeks)

-Small amount of resistance training

– Small amount of MCT oil before exercise

For rounds 3 and 4 I used 2000iu vials of HCG and remixed the hormone every 7-10 days. For Round 5 I chose to go ahead and use a 5000iu vial and I will compare and let you know my opinion on the comparison. Basically my reasons for mixing in smaller batches is just to keep the hormone as fresh as possible at all times.

I can tell you what ended up actually taking place in Round 4 of HCG Injections. Yeah the resistance training? My body doesn’t like doing too many things at once that’s what I found out. I did crossfit just a little bit for the first week and it seemed to bring my weight and fat loss to a screeching halt after just the first couple vlcd days for like 10 days afterwards. Needless to say that round I didn’t lose much weight overall. I still accomplished something, but I think I would have done better had I kept the attempted weightlifting out.

No More Thyroid Medication, Maintaining hCG Weightloss

March 28, 2012

The thing you might take away most from this vlog is how amazingly stable my fat has remained. You won’t hear me talking too much about my weight so much because what I really care about is my fat. I don’t worry about the scale because I’ve been purposely gaining weight in the form of muscle. But I have been consistently maintaining my fat losses.

You can maintain your fat losses from hCG. Don’t listen to those naysayers. Believe the people who are living proof that is can be done, and fairly easily too. I don’t count calories, I don’t eat only 1200 calories a day to maintain, I don’t starve myself. And I’m maintaining. Okay? Okay.

Regarding fasting and weightlifting, I think the intermittent fasting is fantastic for keeping weight stable. But I have found if muscle gains are your goal, fasting kind of hampers this. As soon as I stopped fasting, my strength at crossfit and muscle grew in leaps and bounds- it was that noticeable. My body just needed more in order to build a lot of strength I guess. Since strength gains was my goal during the interim period between Round 3 and Round 4 of HCG Injections, this served me well. At some point when I feel I’ve gotten pretty far with both my fat loss and my strength, I may be incorporating the intermittent fasting again in order to stay at a stable weight. The intermittent fasting program that worked fantastically for maintaining my weight was Brad Plon’s Eat Stop Eat protocol. I highly recommend reading his book as it dispels so many myths about fasting, as well as contains what I believe is the simplest, easiest way to maintain weight without having to count calories every day for the rest of your life.

YOU CAN KEEP THIS WEIGHT OFF LONG TERM, AND YOU CAN DO IT IN A WAY THAT WORKS FOR YOUR BODY.

At this point I had officially gotten off all my thyroid medication, and I still am. This is pretty unheard of for people like me. I have Hashimoto’s which is an autoimmune thyroid condition. I used to take 87.5 mcg of T3 (Cytomel) and now I take none. Autoimmune conditions according to conventional medicine are incurable. But now I feel great, I’m living a normal life, and I don’t take any medication.

Lastly- for any of you that like to go on youtube, please subscribe to Delmem. He is just such a valuable asset to revolution to prove Human Chorionic Gonadotropin is healthy and works as Dr. Simeons said it did. He is even expanding on it with his own research. He has a lot of interesting things to share in his vlogs.

Hydrostatic Bodyfat Results – Compare After R3 with 3 months Crossfit

March 30, 2012

My hydrostatic body fat test results showed that at 124.8 before I started crossfit, I had 33.79 lbs of fat, and the follow up hydrostatic test showed I had 34.33 lbs of fat at 132.5 pounds- so only a half pound fat gain, which is totally awesome since I gained over 7 lbs of muscle. This means I’ve maintained 99% of my 17 lbs fat loss from my 3rdHCG Injections round. I now have a lower body fat percent at 132 pounds than at 124 pounds.

Also I wanted to take this opportunity to tell all you ladies out there, not to be afraid of building muscle. It will really work to your benefit in the long run, and you will not look like the hulk. But also that what this can mean for a period of time is that you will see an increase in the scale at first. Unless you gain muscle and lose fat at the same time, you will see an increase in the scale and even in your inches a little bit. I have found using this weight loss protocol to lose the fat to be the simplest approach. Then I use crossfit (or another resistance training program of your choice) to build muscle. What I’m trying to say is that your weight and your inches will go back down even smaller than before in your next “phase” of fat loss.

So try not to always use the scale alone as a gauge to whether you’re a success or failure. It’s nice if you can find a way to measure your actual body composition (how much fat vs. muscle you have) instead. The handheld omron body fat monitor has been pretty useful in this respect. You can find it on my “store” page if you wanted to check into purchasing one- they’re only like thirty bucks on Amazon. The handheld body fat monitor was only 1% off of my actual body fat percent when compared to the hyrostatic body fat test.

R4VLCD5 Update – Smaller Measurements at Higher Weight

April 6, 2012

This is my first time taking a dose as low as 125iu of Hcg for subcutaneous injections on the diet, and it has worked well so far! My hunger is obsolete except when it’s time for my small meal.

I started out still doing Crossfit while taking HCG Injections the first week, but I decided to drop it after seeing my weightloss be quite slow this first week when keeping it in.

As I learned while trying to fast and do Crossfit in p3 and p4, it’s seems to be difficult for the body to accomplish multiple things at the same time that are kind of opposites- like fasting and muscle building. That has made me wonder if trying to lose fat quickly on this protocol is really kind of at odds with trying to continue going to Crossfit. I just wanted to try to preserve the muscle I have and hated to stop the Crossfit, but seeing how things have panned out so far, it’s not promising.

Just a little interesting tidbit, my waist and belly measurement at 131 pounds is exactly the same as when I was 122 lbs on my 3rd round. What does this mean? It means I’m more muscle and less fat now- that I can be 9 lbs heavier and have the same smallness of waist and belly. Oh yeah!

R4VLCD7 -2.2, Ketones up after fruit removal

April 8, 2012

Hey guys! HCGchica. I just wanted to check in. This is round 4 VLCD 7. I was actually down 2.2 today on the scale. My fat stayed the same however it’s kinda evening up cause at 1st day I actually was losing more fat than weight according to my OMRON handheld body fat monitor. As of this point I am down 4.4 pounds in 6 VLCD days and 3.5 pounds of fat and I’m thinking it’s possible that my fat loss may catch up even a little bit more tomorrow. I’ll let you guys know because of my last round I definitely had days where my weight wouldn’t drop but my pounds of fat would drop like a pound or even a pound and a half and others days where my weight would drop but my fat would stay the same. So definitely didn’t drop like evenly but somehow it always seems to pretty much catch up. Hopefully that will happen too. Either way I’m still really close so I’m happy with that.

Yesterday was my second day of removing my fruits and having the zero percent FAGE yogurt in place of it. I did that for my entire last round and I had achieve 90% fat loss on my last round which I proved through hydrostatic body fat testing so I know that is a safe thing for me to do since that’s not a normal protocol thing to do. Doctor Simeons never mentioned anything about 0% fat free yogurt for any newbies out there but that’s something I had chosen to try and it did worked for me, for my fat loss. Yesterday was my second day doing that and what was nice was today my ketones were up to 40. Yesterday they were only at trace and the day before that they were at 15 so my ketones have definitely been smaller than last round and I wanted to see if I could bump that up a bit and if that will help my fat loss at all.

Yesterday I was definitely quite tired. I don’t know if that’s because of my body getting a little more into ketosis. Today I felt great. I had really good energy. So yeah so that’s that. I guess that’s all I have to share so that’s where I’m at for moment and I’ll update again soon. Take care.

Low Blood Sugar on HCG – HCGR4VLCD9

April 10, 2012

If you ever choose to remove the fruits on p2 as I have done the past 3 rounds of HCG Injections, do be careful about keeping your blood sugar even. It is much easier to get low blood sugar when you remove the fruits and grissini since that makes up the majority of the carbs on the diet. I find my body does adjust after a couple days, but you may have to eat a little extra vegetables or other carb when you get low blood sugar at first. Just be aware of how you’re feeling is all.

It feels really yucky to deal with low blood sugar so it’s good to address that right away.

Transcript:

Hey guys! HCGhica! Just want to update you. It’s Round 4 VLCD 9. I’m down a half pound in fat today so I’m really happy about that. We’ll see if it sticks tomorrow. My body fat percent so far has dropped by little over 2% in 8 days so that’s exciting. I did have some low blood sugar issues yesterday. I did have this at the beginning of my last round. I think it has to do with the fact that I took out my fruits again which I had done last round. When you don’t have the fruits on P2 it makes the diet really low carb. I think that really fix my blood sugar. I have a glucose meter, for those of you who are familiar with blood sugar numbers usually I think 90-100 is best. I feel best when it’s close to 100. In the morning I actually felt a little bit like when I stood up quickly like I might faint or something so I had 3 egg whites and 1 egg yolk which I was kind of hoping would help bring it up. I guess it doesn’t really have much carbs in it at all if any. So as it was it didn’t help because half an hour later I checked my blood sugar and it was 74 which is definitely too low for me. I decided to go ahead and take another 25 IU of the hormone as well. Just up my dose back up to 150 to see if that had anything to do with it. Then I had 100 calories of 0% FAGE yogurt. I continue to check my blood sugar it still wasn’t going up much. I think it went up to 80 and then maybe 85 and then it started going back down again. So I came home and had my lunch which was my asparagus soup with chicken and Shirataki noodles and then I was doing better after that. I think it was up to 96 after I had my soup. In the afternoon I ended up having my yogurt again and I did have an extra item of food yesterday. I decided to have an apple. I felt like my body probably needed a little more carb so I had an apple. For dinner I had my chicken onion and lemon soup with the noodles and I was good. I was good with that. I did have to eat a little more because of my blood sugar. That was good.

This morning my blood sugar is 85 on waking. I took my injection and then I waited for a little bit and I checked it again and then it was 78. I knew I should probably eat something so I had a half cup of my 0% FAGE yogurt and not too long after that, actually I checked it again and it was 96 which was perfect, and then it was getting close to lunch time again. I am doing much better today with that. I also remix my hormone today so I have a new batch. I mix in 2000 IU vials and they usually last between 9 and 11 days or so. Maybe that will be a good thing too and I’m going to go back to 150 IU injections for the moment and yeah that’s it. Just want to give you guys a quick update and I was really happy to see my fat go down to 29.5 pounds today because I’ve been stuck at 30 pounds of fat for 4 days and before that I was stuck at 31 pounds of fat for 3 days and last round I was stuck at 30 pounds of fat for like a week. I don’t know maybe that is like a fat set point for me. I’m not sure but I was really happy to see 29.5 today and I will be super happy to see it- I would love to see it drop even more tomorrow but even if it just stays the same at 29.5 I will be very happy about that. So that’s my update today and I’ll check in again soon.

R4VLCD12 Lost some more fat finally!

April 13, 2012

This round is showing me once again just how complex our bodies are. For over a week I haven’t lost weight or fat and I’m eating 500 calories a day and I’m not hungry. So how’s that working? What am I living on? Very interesting indeed.

As an experiment I tried removing stevia to see if it would increase my ketones. Although it’s doubtful stevia could affect blood sugar and therefore ketones, on this protocol you never know right? So I left the stevia out one day. And guess what? The next day my ketones dropped to zero. Yay for me- I can have stevia without worrying.

The other thing I then turned my attention to was the shirataki/miracle noodles. Again I really don’t think it could affect anything because to me it’s like saying eating cardboard would prevent fat loss.

I did drop 1.5 pounds of fat finally which was very satisfying to see.

Body Shot and Comparison of different body fat percents at same weight- R4VLCD16

April 17, 2012

Transcript:

Hey guys! HCGchica! Sorry for the strange angle. I wanna give you guys a body shot today. I’ve been by HHcgCraZy and MissHCGgirl. I agree body shots are really helpful to see when you’re researching this weight loss protocol or when you’re on the protocol. So I had to set my camera a little different.

Today is VLCD 16 of round 4. I am at 127.2 today but more importantly I am down to 27.5 pounds of fat as of this morning. Again that is on my handheld OMRON body fat monitor. So in reality it’s actually 2 – 3 pounds of fat higher if I were to have hydrostatic but since I use my OMRON every day I used it last round I’m able to use this to make comparisons and it’s been really consistent. Anyway I’m really excited because where I’m at the OMRON is 27.5 pounds of fat which means so far I’ve had a 6 pound fat lost in the last 15 days and I’ve had a 6.4 pound weight lost. So basically so far almost all of my weight lost is fat which is really what I was going for. For some of the newbies out there don’t be alarmed if it’s sounds like, cause you know saying I lost 6 pounds in 15 days doesn’t sound like much but don’t be alarmed I’m really getting much smaller now I’m already a size 4. I’m getting close to being a size 2 so it’s normal for it to be small at this point. If you’re much heavier you’ll definitely be losing a lot more weight than that in 15 days if you’re doing the protocol. But as you get smaller it definitely gets slower and for those of you who are getting smaller in the protocol its normal for it to be slow I think but be patient. It’s definitely been difficult at times to be patient this round but you know my lost vlog I discuss how I was stuck at 30 pounds of fat like seemingly forever but now it’s gradually going down it went down to 28.5 in this morning 27.5 so as of the moment it’s putting me at 21.7% body fat. Again in reality if I did the hydrostatic which I will in a couple of few weeks it’s probably more like 22.7 or 23.7 but I’m definitely getting in o a really good zone with my body fat percent now. So I’m really excited about that and also to have almost all of my weight loss be fat loss that was really the most important thing to me.

One other quick thing I wanna mention before I do the body shot is that because I did the interim period between my last round in this round of CrossFit. I did a 3 months of cross fit. It doesn’t necessarily have to be that but if you do some type of program that really pushes you with some weight lifting where you can build muscle I gained 7 pounds of muscle during that time and I had my hydrostatic results to prove that and I only gained a half pound of fat. What’s kinda neat is because of that, that weight gained that I had was almost entirely muscle. So now this time as I go down in my weight I’m able to match it up with my 3rd round and where I was at that weight with my body fat percent. So I would just like to show you guys. Last round when I was at this weight 127 I have 127.4 on there I was actually between 34- I was 34.5 pounds of fat that day. As of today I’m 27.5 pounds of fat at that same weight. So that’s actually 7 pounds less fat at the same weight. Again what that means is that I am smaller. I’m smaller now at the same weight. So that’s really exciting to me. On that day on my third round the OMRON had me at 27.1 percent body fat as a result and today I’m at 21.7 so that’s almost 6% less body fat. That’s definitely what you want

Okay, so here’s my body shot I’m a size 4 right now. Show you the front, side, back and other side so I hope you can see all of me. But anyway this are snug pants so it’s kinda holding in a little bit of stuff up here but overall I definitely kinda losing a little bit all over this round. Like I said I’m still size 4 which is what I finished at last round when I was 122, 124 as I think when I got into the size 4 and they were pretty snug but the size 4 on me now at 127 were actually getting lose and I’m starting to get close to a size 2. I don’t know that I’ll reach that at the end of this round or not. I probably have to extend my round if I wanted to do that but anyway yeah I’m excited I’m happy with the results but it is definitely much slower when you’re smaller but I do think the actual inch change is quicker because just losing smaller amounts has a bigger change in your body. Other than that I am basically always negative or trace on the ketones sticks now. So just to show that as long as you’re doing the diet properly not showing ketones is not a bad thing. My last round I had really big ketones for much of the rounds and lost almost all fat and this time I have almost none the whole time. Sorry the camera keeps moving. I have it sitting on top of my lampshade so I can show you the body shot.

Anyway that’s my results. I’m having my Shirataki noodles again. My stevia cause that really didn’t seem to be what was affecting my fat loss. It really just seem to be a time factor and just my own body working through whatever issues it had. The other one quick thing I did wanna mention was that I have had a few, not a few, maybe almost every other day period where I feel really tired. One day specially I felt really bad and you know I research stuff a lot and I know that toxins that your body is around is stored in your fat, can be stored in your fat. I was kinda wondering if some of this fat that I’ve been losing had some toxins stored in it. Cause I’ve definitely done some unhealthy things. I used to do a lot of- I used to paint homes and I never wore a mask and I didn’t wear gloves and I would just get paint all over me and breathe it, the vapors and I did that for a number of years and drinking a lot of Diet Coke and I got very sick. I use to even do that with like you know just strong different paints like sealers. I use to do a lot of furniture and stuff like that. I was just stupid. I was young and stupid. So I did things like that and I do feel that’s one of the reasons that I originally got ill and got my auto-immune condition. So I’m kinda wondering if some of that fat had stored some toxins, you know that was then being released and then causing me to feel a little sick and then the next day I would feel really good again. So anyway I’m just really glad to be getting rid of that fat if that is the case. So that’s my update for today. Thanks for watching guys, see you later.

Size 0 Vest Bodyshot, Hunger and Dose Fixing, R4P2VLCD20 update

April 21, 2012

I have had this vest for about 16 years now. While I purchase most of my clothing from thrift stores because I’m just frugal like that (INC blouse for $6 at goodwill? oh yeah, it’s mine), this vest was purchased in the mall for over $100- and you know what? It was worth every stinkin’ penny. It has been my favorite piece of clothing all these years. Obviously I couldn’t wear it for at least the last 7 years. I put it on this day, vlcd 20 of my 4th round of HCG Injections and guess what? I buttoned the entire vest up. I remember trying it on a couple years ago as I went through all my “too small” clothes and there was at least a 7 inch gap across my chest that the vest wouldn’t go across. At that time I couldn’t fathom to myself how I could have been so small at one time. And this day I buttoned it up! Now, today October 14 2012, as I finish up Round 5, this vest fits even more comfortably- anywhere below the bust line the vest is actually a little on the loose side, making it comfortable to sit down in too, not just stand in (kind of a plus since most events involve some sitting).

Also….I like my legs now. I’ve NEVER liked my legs. Finally, at 31 years of age, I like my legs. I am so amazed at how much this diet plan really does create a wonderful re-shaping action of your body. No one knows the shape of my legs more intimately than I do, and I can tell you they are having the best shapeliness in their whole life on this planet, even when I used to weigh less than I do now. Okay, enough about me. Let’s move on to something that might actually help you shall we?

DOSING AND HCG:

I had a point a few days before VLCD 20 that I experienced some strong actual hunger- I was very preoccupied with the urgent need to eat all day. I ended up mini-loaded that night- just from dinner on about 7pm-10pm- I just ate whatever I felt like eating. My blood sugar with the protocol foods was not getting high enough- kept hovering around 75-80 and I feel best if my blood sugar is 90-100. Even after mini-loading, the following day I again felt very preoccupied with the need to eat- very hungry indeed.

In retrospect I needed a smaller dose. I had been injecting 150iu’s, and I dropped it to 125iu’s- immediately when I did that I felt so much better- the difference was drastic- the day I started injecting 125iu’s I didn’t even feel the need to eat anything until like 2pm. So for all those out there who experience abnormal hunger at different points through the protocol, always look at your dose of the hormone as a possible thing to tweak. As of now, as I close Round 5 (this vlog was from Round 4), I took 125iu for the entire round with great success and almost no hunger the whole round.

I really don’t recommend mini-loading- it would be better to eat more P2 protocol foods until you figure out why you are feeling abnormally hungry, most likely all you need is a new batch of the hormone or a different dose. I have found mini-loading to simply be a waste of time on the protocol- I do not think it causes extra fat loss on the diet, I think it just slows you down.

hCG End of Round 4

April 25, 2012

I am proud to say I got through this round successfully even though it was the slowest round as far as weight loss and fat loss goes compared to all my other rounds. At first I thought this was just because I am smaller now so the weight was coming off slower. However, now as I complete Round 5 where I was even smaller than the start of Round 4 of HCG Injections, I now feel my slow fat loss was due at least in part to food allergies. I had a very comprehensive food allergy panel done through a company called ALCAT. It turns out that several of the foods I was eating quite a bit of while on Round 4 of the diet were foods my body is actually allergic too. Comparing now with Round 5, I seemed to have lost weight and fat more quickly, by avoiding the foods that I was allergic too.

Transcript:

Hey guys! HCGchica! I’m just checking in to give you a little update. I am actually at the end of Round 4 so tomorrow P3 starts for me. I ended up doing 22 very low calorie days with injections and now I’m finishing my last day of my very low calorie without injections so I’m very happy.

This round has been like none other. I think when I’m getting much smaller I don’t have a lot more fat I could lose. I do have about another 6 -7 pounds of fat I could actually lose according to the hydrostatic technician but anyway what I was thinking was if you think of all the other HCgers that are getting smaller and that have been doing rounds I noticed the weight loss is definitely much, much slower HHCGcrazy, HCGfashionista who else is kind of more towards, at goal or close to goal. There has been a few others who have come really far and then I noticed when I went back and watch a few vlogs some people had done 50 VLCD days and lost like 15 pounds so definitely much slower. It still makes it worth it though, because even though it is like pulling teeth to get those last few pounds off with the protocol but it’s still easier to extract those teeth on the protocol than without it that’s for sure. That’s because- I know that because you know doing 3 months of CrossFit this past 3 months before my round I was eating really good going to Cross and working out super hard like 4 days a week and I gained muscle which was my whole goal. I wasn’t trying to lose fat. I already knew that it was difficult to lose fat without the protocol but it’s true I didn’t lose a single pound of fat. I actually gained a half pound of fat while I was gaining the 7 pounds of muscle that I gained with CrossFit.

So just to show you, you know it’s not easy to lose fat. You can often lose weight but losing fat itself is not easy. Anyway with that said I’m gonna be having a hydrostatic body fat test done another ten days or so. I’ll give you the final for real statistics then but as it appears, you know I use my OMRON body fat monitor it appears that I lost a total of about 7 pounds in the whole round in 22VLCD days and it appears that 6 pounds of it was fat. So I’m really hoping that’s the case and that does seem about right for how much I’ve shrunk. I started at 133.8 and my LDW is 126.6 and I started out with 33.5 pounds of fat and finished at 27.5 pounds of fat. So I’m excited. Technically it looks like I’ve lost about 3% body fat in the 3 weeks which at my current size is very good. I did go to CrossFit like the first 4 days on the protocol. I did go to CrossFit 3 times but then I kinda dropped that because I just was feeling like it was trying to make my body do too much. Anyway that’s how my round went. It was definitely mentally difficult for me to stick to because I was getting more and more fatigue and tired especially this last half, last week and a half and I really don’t cope well with being feeling kind of fatigue. Just because I have a history of chronic illness and I’ve gotten away from it so makes me very unsettled to feel those old physical feelings come back cause I get concerned that their not gonna go away. So that’s kinda part of the reason I decided that I needed to stick with my guns and my plan which was to do a short round. It was tempting to do another week or so and see if I could get another 2 or 3 pounds of fat off but at some point you just have to do what’s best for your body, health wise, and I kinda tend to be a high achiever when it comes to goals. I’m not a perfectionist definitely not a perfectionist but I am kind of goal oriented. I like projects. I like to make things like the best or the prettiest or you know whatever the case maybe. So it was easy of course to translate into wanting my body to be the best you can be. I’m gonna guess when I have my hydrostatic done that I have about maybe 28 pounds of fats as of now in reality and if that’s the case, the hydrostatic body fat technician told me that I technically don’t need more than like 20 pounds of fat on my body. So technically there is like 8 more pounds of fat I could lose, could safely lose, and then be super healthy but it’s easier said than done you know and I am at a healthy place now. So I’m definitely gonna just try to be happy with that cause I am happy where I’m at but it’s just fun to go all the way but that’s gonna have to wait. My brain is not there, it’s not. My mental side is not ready to go all the way just because of how hard it is. We weren’t meant to eat like this of course in everyday of our lives. Eating so minimally and eating good healthy food in amounts that are healthy not overeating but eating a little more is definitely I think one of the pleasures in life and one of the things that makes life enjoyable is having tasty food and eating it with friends and family and what not and so it definitely is a mental challenge to be so restricted because it isn’t how much you would normally eat.

Anyway, that’s all. I’ll give you my actual statistics soon and I will take before and after photos. I don’t think that they’re gonna look a lot different, you know, compared to my Round 3 photos because I am definitely smaller. I will say like a lot of my size 4 stuff I’m wearing is much looser but I’m not in the size 2 yet. A couple things I’m in a size 2 but definitely not across the board. I am smaller but it’s kinda like everywhere all over. It’s not just my waist or just my hips which I think makes it a little harder to see in photos but I am definitely smaller specially in my legs and all that but I don’t know if you’ll see it in the photos but I’ll still definitely put them up. That’s it, the other thing is, I don’t know if I wanna share this yet- okay maybe I will. I’m actually making a- no I’m gonna wait. I’m gonna wait till I’m done. That’s all I’ll talk to you guys soon.

P3 Check in- 1.6 under LDW and Back to Crossfit!

April 28, 2012

Being under LDW (last day weight or LIW, Last Injection Weight) is a first for me. I think this is because I ended Round 4 of HCG Injections right before TOM (time of the month) when my weight always goes artificially up, so my LDW was on my “water retention” day, so I naturally lost a little weight the following day. So it’s been pretty easy to be under my LDW so far.

I was able to put to rest the one thing I was very nervous about- how would I feel when I went back to Crossfit after being gone for 3 weeks and eating 500 calories for 3 weeks? I walked back into the Crossfit gym with a little bit of nervous jitters, but I knew within the first 10 minutes of class that I was just as strong as when I left. I was very relieved and happy to see this result.

Transcript:

Hey guys! HCGchica! This is Round 4 P3 Day 3 so I wanna check in. My first p3 check in. I’m doing really good. I’m so happy to be in P3 and it’s going really well. My LDW is 126.6 and I’m 125 this morning. I feel like I might have it a little bit easy this time because I ended my round right before TOM which always put me in a higher weight. So actually TOM came the first day of p3 so that day my weight dropped to 124.8. I was basically down 1.8 over the 2 days following my LDW and yesterday I was down .2 to 124.6 and this morning I was up .4 to 125 but my pounds of fat has been the same ever since my LDW which is 27.5 pounds of fat. I’m very happy about that. I did get back to CrossFit as of yesterday so yesterday is my first time back at CrossFit and yeah so I’m a little sore today cause you know I haven’t worked out in a full 3 weeks and so I know I’m going to retain a little bit of water and stuff like that. Really not bad though. I’m feeling really good.

The one thing I want that I’m really glad about is I was a little nervous about going back to CrossFit and just to see where my strength level was at cause when you take 3 weeks off from working out you’re not sure how much strength you’re gonna lose and even though I totally believe you don’t lose more muscle than is necessary on the protocol it’s still a little nerved racking considering how hard I’ve worked out for the last 3 months and gained about 7 pounds of muscle so as far as my little handheld body fat monitor goes it looks like I’ve lost just about all fat but until I get my hydrostatic done in a week. I was still feeling a little unsettled like I wanna know what are the final results and in concrete proof.

But when I went to CrossFit yesterday I knew within the first 10 minutes. I was like nope I feel just as good as I did before I left. So I’m sure on some of like the heavier weight I might have to work back up a teeny bit but we did like a bunch of box jumps and hand stand push-ups and a whole circuit and I was actually, I kind of did actually the most in the given amount of time in the class that day and usually in the class I’m totally the last person. Anyway I was just excited because it was obvious that I have maintained my strength even though I was eating 500 calories a day for 3 weeks so to all the HCGers out there. I wanna do another blog on that. It seems like there’s been a resurgence lately and HCG-hating and I’ve got some concrete proof people that this weight loss protocol works so there’s nothing you can reason or say to prove otherwise. When you have test results showing 90% fat lost you cannot argue with that so just give up now.

Anyway, I’m really, really happy. I’m doing good. I feel much better now. I did get back on a little tiny bit of thyroid medication, for those of you who haven’t been following me too long I used to take a very high dose I’ve since through a combination of a number of things, not just this protocol but a combination of different health approaches actually completely got off my thyroid medication about maybe 2 months ago and towards the end of this round I was getting really tired. And you know my thyroid symptoms are always worse on this protocol but that’s okay because in the end I am so much healthier now than when I started out. Anyway I decided at the end maybe I should try just a little bit of thyroid until I can get back to CrossFit regularly cause I do think the CrossFit keeps my current thyroid health going pretty well and I didn’t do it for 3 weeks so I’m just taking a teeny bit and that’s helped immensely. I’m feeling really good. And like I said so far I’ve been eating P3 style for, well today is the 3rd day, I guess that’s not very long but you know’ I’m eating good amount of food and so far I have not had like huge fluctuations. So I’m really excited. I’m hoping that it’ll be a little easier to stabilize my fat this time. Again I’m not so concerned about stabilizing my scale weight because as I said since I’m doing CrossFit. I am building muscle and that I don’t care about that but I would like to keep my fat in the same range especially since I didn’t lose as much this time. So anyway so I’m doing really good I just want to let everybody know cause I always wonder how people do when they get to P3 like “Okay so you lost it but now it’s gonna happen” so so far so good. I’ll check in again soon and I’m just really enjoying all my food and I’m even having some fruit so in past P3s I didn’t really have any fruit but I’m having a little bit of fruit. So alright I’ll check in soon. Take care guys.

Body Re-Shaping On HCG – R4P3D7 .8 under LIW

May 2, 2012

I have been able to get off my thyroid medication completely and I’ve pretty much been off it for about 8 months now and feeling great. But I’m not against thyroid medication. It gave me my life back for 2 years after feeling horrible and not knowing what was wrong for the previous 6 years before that. After losing weight with HCG Injections and seeing an alternative healthcare dude and starting Crossfit (weight lifting and high intensity interval training), removing gluten, I’ve actually gotten my health to the point where I no longer need it. I’m still amazed to be at this point, but if I still needed the thyroid medication to feel normal, I would by all means take it. It’s important to do what’s necessary in order to feel good enough to feel happy about life and to carry on day to day.

REGARDING THE RE-SHAPING THAT I BELIEVE HCG CAUSES-

I used to be very small in high school. I only weighed 102 lbs, but was still plenty muscular because I could hike tall mountains “with the guys.” But even back then as small as I was, I never cared for the shape of my legs- they were still “big” looking- they didn’t have a nice shape to them- they were just kind of like logs. Now I’m not as small as I was in high school, and yet I find that this hormone has created in my legs a very pleasing, curvaceous but leaner shape! Something I’ve never had. I sometimes look at my legs and am surprised they belong to me. Don’t get me wrong- they are still fleshy, but they are more shapely than they’ve ever been. No doubt this is also partly due to the muscle I’ve built from Crossfit. But the point is, the hormone really does remove fat from those “trouble areas” that people talk about- you know- those areas that no matter how skinny a person gets, they still have this weird looking fat hanging off their sides or their hips or wherever their particular body happens to store excess fat. I have continued to be amazed at how evenly balanced those who had done the protocol look after reaching their goal weights.

Before and After Body Fat Percent with Hydrostatic Testing

May 10, 2012

Statistics from Round 1 to Round 4 of HCG Injections. Starting weight 171 lbs, 59 lbs of which was fat, 34.5% body fat. After Round 4, weight 127.4, 30.5 lbs of which was fat, 23.9% bodyfat. 10.6% bodyfat lost, almost 30 lbs of fat. If you take out all the breaks between my rounds during which time I was not “on a diet” but rather maintaining my different weights while eating lots of healthy food with no calorie counting, I lost all this fat in only 101 vlcd (very low calorie) days on Human Chorionic Gonadotropin. Again like I said, I was not on the protocol for 101 days straight- I broke the weightloss up and took long breaks- but all the actual weightloss and fat loss was achieved during those 101 days on my diet rounds, while eating 500 calories a day and not exercising at all.

Update Maintaining HCG Weightloss- HCG R4P4

May 23, 2012

So what am I eating in P4 of HCG Injections (the phase where you add in some starches and sugars again)? While I no longer eat processed sugar or things like honey, date syrup, brown rice syrup- anything that’s technically a real sugar sweetener, I do eat whole fruits which have plenty of fructose sugar and I’ve incorporated brown rice as well without trouble.

I did my first pull-up from hanging recently! Anyone who knows about fitness stuff knows this is no easy feat for a woman. I was excited to achieve this!

Human Chorionic Gonadotropin continues to get a lot of flack for being a “fad” diet or being a “starvation diet.” I am here to show you my proof that is not true. My body fat testing proves that the majority of weight loss has come from fat and that I’ve successfully with ease been able to maintain my fat losses.

That said, on any diet you do, not just hCG, if you go back to eating cartons of ice-cream and french fries when you’re done, yes you are going to gain the weight back. That doesn’t mean the diet didn’t work. That has to do with our responsibility to make long term changes when it comes to how we eat. So people saying that those who do the protocol “gain the weight right back” really aren’t saying anything at all. In actuality, most people who do most diets gain the weight right back. Why? Is it because all of those diets are starvation diets or they all don’t work? Obviously not. It’s because these ones didn’t make long term changes to their eating habits, which I think we could say we’ve all fit that category at one time or another in our life, myself included.

There are many examples that can be found on youtube- before and after hcg videos who have reached a healthy weight through the use of the Diet and continue to maintain their weightloss. Why? Because they made those long term changes.

Maintaining HCG Weightloss Still

May 27, 2012

There’s not really much to say here- life in P4 of HCG Injections has been good. Keeping the hCG weight off has been good. It can be done guys!

Transcript:

Hey guys! HCGchica. I just wanted to check in really quick, it’s been a while. It is day 64 since the end of my 4th round and I am 127.4 today my LDW was 126.6 so I am only .8 over my LDW so I just wanna let you know that yes I’ve been maintaining my weight just fine no problems I have been eating plenty of fruit and other healthier carb type things mostly from rice since I can’t eat gluten anymore. But I have been able to eat that and still maintain my weight so anyway I just wanted to let you know. Thanks to all the subscribers that I’ve had in recent months. I think I have like 900 now it’s just totally crazy. Thank you guys. Pretty soon here I wanna do a little bit of longer vlog kinda just giving a recap of my whole weight loss journey, just since I do has so many new people that are subscribed and I have a lot of videos and I know it’s kinda impossible to just go watch all of them. Pretty soon I will try to do that but in the mean time I just want to let you know I am still successfully maintaining my losses and yeah that’s it so I’ll check in again soon. Take care bye.

Water Intake and the hCG Diet- 6 Tips to help you drink the right amount for YOU

August 4, 2012

Let’s talk both about drinking enough water on Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG) but also the dangers of drinking too many liquids as well. Here are 6 tips to help you drink the proper amount of liquids for your body.

TIP 1: THIRSTY NOT HUNGRY.

Drinking enough liquids while on HCG Injections is a definite factor in not eating too much on the protocol. Sometimes when you think you are hungry on the protocol, you are actually thirsty- use this as your first line of defense before you eat too many calories on the protocol. Try drinking something first, like some hot tea with stevia, and see if you are still hungry after that. We know that eating too many calories on the diet makes the whole protocol totally ineffective, so this is a good thing to try when you’ve eaten your calories for the day and think you’re still hungry for more (being excessively hungry on the protocol is also often a dose issue which I talk about here.)

TIP 2: DRINK LIQUIDS THROUGHOUT THE DAY, NOT ALL AT ONCE.

Interesting fact about your kidneys….it appears that healthy kidneys can process about a quarter gallon of water per hour at rest- that’s 1 quart. So it’s a good idea not to chug down a whole gallon of water in 20 minutes- that could be kind of taxing on your kidneys and cause an electrolyte imbalance as well. You don’t need to really overthink this, but I wanted to just mention it briefly because on this protocol, many people online and in youtube vlogs put a lot of emphasis on drinking tons and tons of water. This could actually be unsafe, even life threatening, depending on what your definition of tons of water is of course. One thing that can happen if you drink way too much water all at once is that the electrolytes in your system can get too diluted leading to a condition called Hyponatremia (insufficient salt in your blood). Honestly this isn’t probably gong to happen to any of you hCGers- most of the time this appears to be an issue for athletes who’ve just done a huge amount of exercise and lost a lot of electrolytes through their copious sweating and then drinking plain water which doesn’t replace those electrolytes. But it’s still worth mentioning, proving that, as with all things in life really, you want to approach everything in a balanced way, including how you drink liquids. Be sensible. Don’t panic and reach for a couple gallon jugs when the latest youtube vlogger reminds you to drink tons of water.

HOW TO TELL IF YOU’RE DRINKING ENOUGH WATER:

TIP 3: WHAT DR. SIMEONS, THE ORIGINAL CREATOR OF THE HCG PROTOCOL SUGGESTED

It is going to vary somewhat obviously because we’re all different heights, weights and have different activity levels on the protocol . Dr. Simeons who wrote the original diet protocol recommended 2 liters of liquids a day, which is a little over 2 quarts, or half a gallon.

TIP 4: CHECK HOW MUCH YOU PEE EACH MORNING AND ITS COLOR.

It should be a copious amount and pale or clear (unless you’re taking lots of b vitamins, in which case the color of your urine will probably be bright yellow even if you’re fully hydrated). So if you wake up the in a.m. and don’t really have to pee much or it’s fairly dark in color, you may likely be dehydrated.

TIP 5: TO KEEP YOUR ELECTROLYTES IN BALANCE, A SIMPLE CUP OF HOT TEA WITH A PINCH OF SALT CAN DO THE TRICK.

TIP 6: OFF HCG, WEIGH YOURSELF DAILY FOR A WEEK.

Try weighing yourself daily for a week- your weight should remain relatively the same when you weigh yourself in the morning. If you’re not drinking enough water and your body is dehydrated, your body is actually going to hold on to water and you may see bigger fluctuations on the scale. A good example of a time we’ve probably all experienced this phenonemon is when you eat 3 slices of pizza and a beer with your friends one night and the next morning, your face is feels swollen, your rings won’t budge, and you weight 3 lbs more on the scale than usual. All that’s happening is that your body is retaining water to compensate for all the sodium you took in. Water makes up about 60% of the human body, give or take. Here’s a great short article discussing water and our bodies. That’s why it’s important to get our fluids in. But some of us really don’t like to just drink plain water so it can really be a challenge- that’s why in my next post I’ll talk about some creative ways to make drinking enough fluids while on the diet plan both easy and enjoyable.

P4 Update- 108 days since Round 4 end for hcgchica

August 11, 2012

CURRENT WEIGHT/FITNESS STATS

I mention this because my LIW (last injection weight) is 126.6, but since I’ve been trying to build muscle with crossfit, I’m currently 132. That’s 5.5 pounds over my LIW. The neat thing is that since this vlog, I had a hydrostatic body fat test done, and it turns out 5 lbs was muscle and only ½ lb was fat- I did better than I gave myself credit for!

DOING SOMETHING PRO-ACTIVE FOR YOUR BODY, EVEN AFTER HCG

I had what I called more “dietary indiscretions” during this p4 than usual, so that’s why I was concerned that a larger percentage of the weight gain was fat, but as it turns out I was wrong (thankfully). I think this goes a long way in showing that continuing to do something progressive for your body after Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (like crossfit!) is a great way to help your body continue to grow while not gaining “weight” in the sense of fat.

I’ve been able to eat a surplus of calories all this time in a way that my body then used almost all of it to build muscle not fat. Pretty cool huh? I love being able to be so free with my calorie intake, and all I have to do to enjoy this is go to crossfit 3-4 times a week for an hour each time. 3 hours a week guys! That’s it. And I can eat calories freely without counting (and I don’t eat like a bird, I promise you that).

HCG DIET ROUND 5 COMING SOON

Round 5 of the diet will be starting in the near future. Why you may ask? Am I not “done”? My goals in regards to my body are a little unique in that I desire to reach a specific type of body composition. I’m trying to increase my muscle mass and lower my fat mass, over time, to have a well sculpted, lean body with a fairly low body fat percentage.

My bodyfat percent was at 23.9% at my last hydrostatic body fat test at the end of Round 4. But being that I go to crossfit, there are women there who look fantastic to me with much lower body fat percentages. As an example, one of the trainers at my crossfit gym is a young woman of about 23 who is 10% body fat by hydrostatic. I don’t necessarily hope to get that low, but 15% would be pretty neat. I know it won’t happen over night, even with the diet, so that is why my body has become a little “project” of sorts- a fun thing to gradually work on that someday might be in a more “done” state.

To this end, I am cycling crossfit (4-6 months at a time or more) with rounds of the protocol (3-6 weeks).

I’m getting quite muscular with crossfit, but my goal is not simply to be strong. I want to be both strong and lean at the same time. This requires that I lose more fat. After several months of crossfit I can feel myself starting to feel more “thick” all over, and then I know it’s time to do my next cycle and shed some more fat.

FOOD ALLERGY TEST

Lastly, I also had a food allergy test that showed that I’m allergic to a number of foods that I eat, and in addition, quite a few foods on the original Dr. Simeons protocol. I will be experimenting with not eating the foods I’m allergic to on my next round to see if this gives me better fat losses.

P4 update- 120 days since end of Round4

August 23, 2012

120 days since Round 4 of HCG Injections ended and holding! P4 is a blast I must say.

I’m excited to say that while I still don’t eat “sugar” in the sense that most people think of it, I eat a TON of fruit. I think the fact that I go to crossfit makes this more possible for me. But I’ve been almost living on figs lately. Also I’ve been having some alternative baked goods like rice flour, sorghum flour, etc. and maintaining my fat losses well.

I’m also still off all my thyroid medication. I don’t want to mislead anyone and say that Human Chorionic Gonadotropin is the sole cause of this because that’s not true. But it was certainly part of the picture that led me to being to recover my health in such a whole way. I used to take what’s called Cytomel or T3- it’s active thyroid hormone to replace what my body was not making. I took a pretty high dose too- 87.5mcg. But now I’ve been off it entirely since the beginning of March and I feel energetic and normal- that’s unheard of.

I just can’t believe how different my life is since I lost all this weight. I feel like myself again. I know many of you perhaps have never known what it feels like to be a normal weight. For me, I did experience this back in my mid-to-late teens. I was thin and fit and felt confident and felt like….well, just me. So now, to get back to my original shape I once again have those same feelings- confidence, comfortable in my body. If it’s your first time being thin in your life, you may have some different feelings than me.

What’s interesting is that when I was thinner, I used to love to wear black and more muted natural colors. As I got more overweight I found myself wearing brighter and more outlandish clothing in order to make myself look prettier and kind of “dress up” my chubby shell or perhaps to distract from it. Now as I get thinner, I find myself once again being drawn to black and more natural tones again. It’s so funny! What an experience this hCG journey has been. I’m so happy to feel like “me” again.

Hydrostatic Bodyfat Testing after 5 months of Crossfit and completion of HCG Diet

September 19, 2012

146 days since the end of Round 4 now. Almost 5 months of maintaining my HCG fat loss from just Round 4 alone. Over a year of maintaining my fat loss from more HCG Injections rounds combined. I’ve been a size 4 for over a year now, so that should tell you something (when I started out pre-hCG as a size 16/18).

Conclusion: I have maintained almost 100% of my fat losses from the diet during the last 5 months, and actually for the entire past year as well. This is one happy Chica (doing a happy dance right at this moment).

A NOTE ABOUT THE OMRON HANDHELD BODY FAT MONITOR

Interestingly, while my Omron handheld body fat monitor has been a useful tool for me both in accuracy and consistency, something about how it works on my body has changed. It used to underestimate my body fat percent when I was heavier by about 2%, which is fine, it’s close and it was consistent in showing me my gradual drop in body fat percent as I lost weight with the protocol. This time when I went for my hydro test however I discovered that for the first time, the Omron had actually overestimated my body fat percent by about 2%. I’m guessing this is because my body composition has changed so much that that is how it now interacts with my higher muscle composition.

COMING CLEAN ABOUT MY P4 DIET THE PAST COUPLE WEEKS….

Recently we had a fairly stressful event in our family life, where our house was foreclosed and we had to find a new home to live, etc.- the whole process of moving, from a three bedroom home, while having a 3 year old soon, and in the circumstances it was under was pretty stressful.

Through all this I did find myself reverting back to my old eating habits for a short time. One of these days I will do an in depth personal vlog/blog post about it because I think it could help others to know that eating disorders can be overcome. It mostly started because I was without my oven for a few days while we were moving. I used to sugar binge (the real kind of binge- like 3000 calories worth of carbs and sugar in 30 minutes kind of binge). I have broken that terrible cycle twice now. It’s been almost a year since my last sugar binge. But as we were moving, I wasn’t able to cook what I normally cook and I have a very difficult finding something I can safely eat out because I’m so sensitive to gluten and it appears to be on almost everything in most restaurants. I ended up cutting myself some slack in an area I shouldn’t have and allowed myself to have some store-made gluten free cookies that contain real sugar. This led to me desiring to eat more of them. Within just a few days, I was already starting to crave sugar and carbs again in a big way, driving all the way across town just to purchase those cookies and eat the whole package.

This was scary to me because this used to be a daily problem I dealt with, and I have spent most of the last year in a lovely state of no craving and easily eating healthfully- this is because I eliminated all regular sugar from diet entirely.

Thankfully I nipped this in bud within a week and a half of this bad cycle starting because I already know where that path goes, and I just can’t allow myself to end up their again. The way I address this issue is through my own little “sugar detox” protocol that works for me. I will detail it in another post, but basically I eat high fat, low carb for several days and almost instantly it kills the cravings.

Interestingly enough, despite eating a high sugar, high carb, high calorie diet for that week and a half, my hydrostatic test results show that I didn’t really have much if any fat gain from it. I just thought that was interesting and I attribute that both to this weight loss protocol and Crossfit. Crossfit really keeps my body and metabolism and strong working order and really does allow quite a freeness of calories after you’ve been going for a time.

PURSUING SOMETHING GOOD FOR YOUR BODY AFTER THE HCG DIET

Finding some type of exercise program after the protocol I think can be an important element in continuing to be motivated to take care of your body properly.

It really keeps me on track with my clean eating because I’m so hapy with the good things I’m achieving with my body through activity.

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Disclaimer- PLEASE READ! I am NOT a medical professional in any way, shape or form. I'm simply a mom sharing what has worked for myself and others. Any content on hcgchica.com should not be misconstrued as medical advice. It is your responsibility to speak with your physician about anything medical related.

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Note: This will add you to my newsletter which shares hcg diet help & sales with you from my 3 hCG sites: hcgchica.com, hcgchicarecipes.com, & P3tolife.com. Emails are generally 1-2x a week. Unsubscribe at any time!

Stay Connected.

Let's Get This Diet Thing DONE,

And move on to what you really want to do with your life.

I'd like to receive the free email course.

Note: This will add you to my newsletter which shares hcg diet help & sales with you from my 3 hCG sites: hcgchica.com, hcgchicarecipes.com, & P3tolife.com. Emails are generally 1-2x a week. Unsubscribe at any time!